NORTHWEST : CYPRESS : Police May Seek Recall of Council

Police here are threatening a recall campaign against the City Council if the council does not agree to their demands for an outside auditor to review the city’s budget.

The police union believes the city has enough money to hire more officers and offer pay raises, and disputes the findings of a city fiscal advisory panel that has recommended cuts in the police budget, among other austerity measures.

About 125 people, including residents and police officers, attended Monday night’s City Council meeting to express their support for the audit and make public their views about law enforcement in Cypress. The police have worked without a contract for two years and without pay increases for 26 months.

Officers’ “lives are on the line daily to provide the serenity you all enjoy as you close your eyes at night every night because they’re out there doing the job they’re underpaid to do,” Steve McKinney, a 20-year Cypress resident, told the council.

Members of the Cypress Public Safety Employees Assn., the police union, are seeking a pay increase of 5% to 7% and are also asking for the hiring of at least eight more sworn police officers.

“This is a wage dispute,” said Lee Buzzard, the association’s chief negotiator. “We don’t accept (the council’s) financial crisis pronouncements. If they say no to the audit review, we will initiate a recall campaign based on what we believe is a substantial base of community support.”

Council members said they will decide whether to hire an auditor after meeting next Monday with the council-appointed Cypress Fiscal Advisory Committee, which has recommended that the city eliminate some management positions, lay off 20 to 25 city employees and reduce employee fringe benefits to reduce the city budget.

The current city budget is $16 million and the committee anticipates a deficit of $1 million to $2.5 million a year for the next five years if the council does not trim expenditures.

To save money, the fiscal panel also recommended trimming police training costs and eliminating the DARE, or Drug Abuse Resistance Education, program in a report presented to the council two weeks ago. If these cuts in the Police Department and other services fail to balance the budget, the committee further suggests contracting for police services with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

Police disagree with the committee’s findings and recommendations.

The police union paid for an auditor to review the city’s budget in November. That auditor concluded that the city is not facing a financial crisis.

But the city’s finance director, Richard Storey, said the association’s audit failed to recognize that the state is taking $825,000 annually from the city’s general fund.

Despite the city’s budgetary problems, Councilwoman Gail H. Kerry said: “We are not closing our ears. We want this community to stay as great as it is and we will do whatever is necessary to do that.”

The council recently decided to hire four more officers and is seeking a state grant to help pay for four more. The council “will do anything we can” for the police and to improve public safety, Mayor Richard Partin said.